Op-ed: What’s the Appropriate Word for This Column? 

The political correctness word police are winning their battle to restrict not just what we say, but how Americans think. The dictionary is no longer the arbiter of what is a legitimate word. Now political correctness is so run amok that careers and lives are ruined by the mere utterance of an unsanctioned word. Speak some un-PC language on TV these days, and you have to check into rehab.

PC'ers, in the name of social "justice," are banning words that traditionally, and accurately, describe professions: Road sweepers are now "ecological operators," housekeepers are "family assistants," and school janitors are "non-teaching personnel." Don't dare send flowers to your secretary on "Secretaries Day." He or she is now an "administrative assistant." If you call a stewardess a "stewardess," you risk being thrown off the plane for making the "flight attendant" feel unsafe.

If you call your waiter a "waiter," you're certain to be waiting a long time for service. We're now required to use the gender-neutral term "server."

It's all about making people who are in less glamorous professions feel better about themselves and removing the rungs from the ladder of life -- and stripping achievement and accomplishment of their virtue. If you don't like serving soda on airplanes, stop complaining about being called a stewardess and do something else. We should own the words that describe our professions and find pride in doing our jobs well -- and not by renaming them.

Not only are people unable to own up to what they do, but they also reject words that have, for centuries, described what they are.

You are blind to this emerging reality if you don't now use the term "visually impaired" to describe a person who can't see. And I hear that "audio impaired" is now the only acceptable term for a "deaf" person. I can foresee being sent to mandatory sensitivity training someday for describing someone as "poor" when the only permitted term becomes "economically disadvantaged."

The people behind this PC language aren't retards, they're "intellectually challenged."

But the politically correct gestapo has a more nefarious agenda: to change the way we think about those who harm society. Calling illegal aliens "undocumented workers" is a turn of phrase intended to hide the fact that people are actually jumping fences.

And we're all just going along with it. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if San Francisco passed a law requiring us to refer to drug dealers as "undocumented pharmacists."

To be anti-PC does not mean does not mean you're unkind or insensitive. Take the word "tranny." Many gay people don't think twice about using it. But transgender friends of mine find it to be the equivalent of the n word, and I take their side in believing one should never use it. "Tranny" is not a part of the English language. It is a made-up word.

While the thought police replace our language with words that advance their political aims, they've also mastered the misappropriation of others. Take the word "racist."

It's about the worst thing one can be called in our society. And it's now being applied to those brave enough to speak out against Islamic fundamentalists. Pointing out the obvious -- that mainstream Muslim thought is homophobic, and homicidal toward nonbelievers -- is one of the quickest ways I know of to get slapped with the racist label. Never mind the fact that Islam is a religion, not a race.

Interestingly, if you criticize Christianity, the worst thing you'll be called is a "liberal."

We've slid way too far down the slippery slope of political correctness. Many academics are bending and dismantling our language to suit their own social, economic, and political agendas, and getting away with it.

We need to stop these idiots -- I mean "cognitively deficient individuals" -- while some words still have meaning.

MICHAEL LUCAS is the creator of Lucas Entertainment, one of the largest studios producing all-male erotica. He lives in New York City. This article is the opinion of the writer and not The Advocate.